


don't turn around when you hear me tread

by tartymoriarty



Category: Bohemian Rhapsody (Movie 2018), Queen (Band)
Genre: Bottom Freddie Mercury, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Freddie Mercury Weekend 2020, He was a spy, M/M, Top Brian May, can i make it any more obvious, he was also a spy, spy AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-07
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:08:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24595045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tartymoriarty/pseuds/tartymoriarty
Summary: Secret Agent May, meet Secret Agent Mercury.Let the chaos ensue.
Relationships: Brian May/Freddie Mercury
Comments: 43
Kudos: 75
Collections: Freddie Mercury Weekend 2020!





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> My fill for Freddie weekend! I had such good intentions to post a complete and neatly wrapped up oneshot but alas. Here I am again. I think there should be about 3 parts to this.
> 
> Prompt: Spies AU, I'm the invisible man, incredible how you can see right through me...
> 
> Disclaimer: I am not a spy, I would make a truly awful spy, and also I'm really bad at research. So without further ado, welcome to my Very Fictional And Clearly Made Up Spy World Where Not Much Makes Sense But That's Okay!

The first time Brian meets him, he knifes Brian in the stomach and takes off with the phone Brian had _just_ liberated from the target.

It’s embarrassing in many ways. Brian chases him but barely lasts five minutes before he’s forced to stop, hand splayed red and wet against the sodden tear in his once-crisp shirt. He loses the target as a result of the chase _and_ his boss hauls him in about it, which Brian hates, because he’s never been very good at keeping his mouth shut and when his boss tells him off Brian tends to argue right back.

Deacon is not amused. Deacon is less amused when it happens again seven months later.

To be fair, they’d received no intel to suggest that he was going to be at the gala that night. Brian arrives in full expectation that his evening will involve a lot of polite mingling, listening in to the right conversations and a few of the wrong ones. He wants to make a few connections who may prove useful in finding out exactly where the gala funds are disappearing off to, because it’s certainly nowhere charitable as the guests are led to believe.

He isn’t expecting an enemy agent to be working the same job as him, and he certainly isn’t expecting to be used as a decoy to let that enemy agent escape when he realises Brian is there.

There’s a moment halfway through the night. Brian is walking down the stairs. The enemy agent is walking up. They are both immersed in separate conversations, but Brian happens to glance up just as the other man does and their eyes lock.

Brian remembers that face approaching him in a crowded room, a warm smile which (stupidly) lowered Brian’s guard. He remembers the subtlety with which this man sidled up into Brian’s personal space, all dimples and long lashes, and then – sudden searing pain in Brian’s stomach. The phone snatched, a laboured fruitless chase.

The man’s face shutters the moment he recognises Brian but he doesn’t speak, just keeps on walking. The stairwell is wide and for a moment they are both standing on the same step, before their path separates them again.

Brian becomes aware that he’s lost track of his conversation, but he doesn’t get the chance to dwell on it – the other agent is barely a step away when he feels a hand at the small of his back, and a sudden deliberate shove sends him reeling down the stairs.

The woman clinging to Brian arms topples down with him, screaming all the way, and together they knock over at least three other people. They land in a crumpled heap together on the smooth marble floor of the entrance hall below and they’re instantly surrounded by people rushing to help, telling them not to move, that first aid is on its way.

Brian ignores the sharp twisting pain in his ankle and clambers to his feet, impatiently pushing aside the man who tries to get him to sit back down again. He staggers free of the crowd and looks up.

There, disappearing into a shadowy corridor high up on the stairs. A glimpse of black hair, a pair of dark eyes flashing in his direction and – worst of all – a grin.

A fucking _grin_. He’s got some nerve.

“Same agent?” Deacon demands the next morning, when Brian (reluctantly) turns up for his debrief.

“Same agent,” Brian mutters. He grits his teeth and bears Deacon’s scolding.

The third time, Brian is expecting him. He acts accordingly.

He’s been tailing the banker for nearly a week now and as such he’s been spending a lot of time in London’s financial heartlands. He goes for strolls when the target moves about, faux-casual, eyes intent, and when the target is still he sips at coffees in Pret A Manger windows and keeps an eye on the building from afar.

The man hasn’t done anything out of the ordinary yet, which makes sense, because Brian’s superiors believe that he has been warned that someone is onto him.

 _Someone_ isn’t them, in this case. They aren’t the only intelligence team in the country, let alone the world.

Call it paranoia or call it intuition. Brian hasn’t been told who else is into their target, but he’s utterly unsurprised when he catches sight of the same enemy agent six days into his tailing mission.

He’s loitering at a bus stop opposite Brian’s chosen Pret, reading the bus timetable, or pretending to. Brian raises his cooling coffee to his lips and takes a slow, measured sip as he finally gets a proper look at him.

He’s dressed casually but colourfully, jeans and a sunflower yellow hoodie. He’s smaller than Brian thought, shorter than he’d realised but slender too. The jeans are tight and show off long slim legs. He’s almost built like a ballerina, Brian thinks, his mind conjuring an image of the first time he saw the man slinking towards him. Like he has an innate grace.

It’s difficult to age him, for all Brian’s observational skills and experience; he only looks like he’s in his late twenties at the most. Brian takes in the windswept black hair, the tanned skin, the drum of his fingers on his thigh as he sits down at the bus stop. He’s unassuming, but something about him catches the eye.

Across the road, the agent looks up as though he can feel Brian’s stare.

Brian takes another sip of coffee, just to disguise his face if the agent does happen to look his way. For a moment it seems like he does, but Brian has sat at that same bus stop earlier in the week; he knows that when you’re looking at Pret’s windows, all you can see is a very vague shape of a person inside, mostly obscured by your own reflection.

They sit there for the better part of an hour, the agent watching the building where Brian’s target works, Brian watching the agent.

When Brian’s tracker shows that the target is getting ready to leave, he takes his chance. Whilst the other agent is looking towards the building, Brian lifts his phone. He pretends to be checking his own reflection on selfie-mode. Then, when nobody around him is looking, he flips the camera back out and zooms in on the agent’s face.

Gotcha.

-

They both follow the target home, Brian hanging back more than usual to stop the other agent from becoming suspicious. He doesn’t seem to realise he’s being followed; his over-the-shoulder glances are more to do with making sure nobody has noticed that he’s stalking someone and less to do with any obvious suspicion that he’s not alone in his stalking.

When the target closes his front door behind him, Brian breaks his usual habit of loitering for a further hour to see if the man is going anywhere else. He takes off, eager to run his photo through the system and see who this mystery agent is.

He links his phone up to the computer as soon as he gets home and goes off to make himself a sandwich whilst the system loads up. It’s cold in the flat and he sticks the kettle on whilst he waits, glad to warm his fingers against a hot mug.

Brian watches as the image of the enemy agent slowly rotates on his screen, diagnostics flashing by too quickly to read. The agent’s face is compared to identity after identity, all the records they’ve ever had of enemy agents, but each is rejected at lightning speed.

Brian is just beginning to think that maybe they’re dealing with a newbie, or, worryingly, someone too good to have ever been caught on record, when his screen flashes red and two words appear in blocky capitals over the image: MATCH FOUND.

Intrigued, Brian leaves his sandwich on the kitchen counter and comes back to the computer, sitting down in front of it.

Sure enough, the system has found him – they don’t have many images of him, and two of them are grainy CCTV shots, but Brian recognises him. He looks younger in some of the shots and in one he even has a moustache, which Brian is surprised to note he pulls off quite well. But it’s definitely him.

His gaze drops, to the information he really wants.

Alias: Mercury  
Birth name:  
Age: 31  
Country of birth:  
Nationality:

“You’re quite the mystery, aren’t you,” Brian murmurs to himself. Still, it’s a relief to have a name at the very least. He rolls the name around his mouth as his gaze flits up again to the handsome face looking back at him from the screen.

Brian remembers the smug grin as the little bastard took off after shoving him down the stairs and a smile of his own plays at the corner of his mouth. Perhaps, he thinks, he ought to have a little fun with Mr Mercury.

-

He doesn’t tell Deacon that he’s located the enemy agent and his identity, which would probably get him fired if Deacon knew. But Deacon doesn’t know, and Brian can’t bring himself to care. If Deacon knew, he’d pull Brian off the case in the knowledge that the other agent might recognise him, and Brian hasn’t spent a week freezing his arse off outside St. Paul’s to be dragged off the case just when things start to get interesting.

Anyway, Deacon would want to set someone else to looking into this Mercury and, Brian thinks as he ghosts a hand over the scar on his stomach, he’s earned the right to look into this himself.

The day drags on much the same as the previous. Brian relocated to the Starbucks on the other side of the road and he’s hoping that Mercury will relocate too, because he can’t really see the bus stop from his new position.

Mercury doesn’t turn up for a while, evidently disinterested in the long stakeout (Brian is faintly jealous that his superiors obviously don’t insist on it), and Brian almost feels disappointed until he finally spots him.

He’s wearing a suit this time, navy with a pink tie. His hair is neatly coiffed and yesterday’s stubble is gone. He moves with the swaggering confidence of a city banker, laptop case dangling from one hand, and Brian has to swallow a laugh when he sees where Mercury sets himself up today: in the window of Pret A Manger, right where Brian sat the previous day.

The afternoon rolls on towards their target’s home time. Mercury taps away at his laptop. Brian pretends to enjoy his chamomile tea. He’s dressed as a university lecturer today, or his best approximation of one. Science, he thinks, smoothing the collar of his rumpled shirt, perhaps physics. Something he could get earnest and enthusiastic about whilst his students droop into their seats with half-lidded eyes.

At last the target moves. Brian watches Mercury watching him and then leaves Starbucks once there’s enough distance between the two of them. He’s only got a vague plan, but it’s all he needs. Tail the target home. Then tail _Mercury_ home when he leaves. He doesn’t need to speak to him, doesn’t want to, not yet. At least Deacon might forgive him the distraction if he’s able to supply an accommodation address when he finally deigns to bring the other agent into conversation.

Unfortunately for Brian, things don’t quite go to plan.

Firstly, the target decides to pop into a McDonald’s on his way home. That leaves Brian awkwardly lurking in a decidedly pissy-smelling alleyway whilst he waits it out, and by the time he dares venture back out to follow the target’s retreating back, Mercury is nowhere to be seen.

Brian hesitates. The last thing he wants to do is accidentally get between Mercury and the target, so that Mercury ends up tailing him.

He scans the high street again, his gaze darting from face to face. And then, at last, a stroke of luck – Mercury, coming out of a small tatty newsagent, holding a packet of sweets and looking for all the world like one of the thousands of city boys streaming home to the London’s leafier outskirts.

He follows again. The target munches his food en-route and makes a brief detour into a park to stuff his rubbish into an already overflowing bin, but otherwise he doesn’t make things any more complicated for his two followers. He goes home and closes the door behind him and Brian watches him potter off to the kitchen, switching the lights on as he goes, as he has done every night for the last week.

Brian transfers his gaze to Mercury. The other agent is leaning against a tree at the far side of the street, still eating whatever sweets he picked up from the newsagent. He’s still staring up at the house their target disappeared into. Brian is tempted to move closer but he resists; from what he’s seen (and felt), Mercury is good. He doesn’t want to give the game away.

After a while, Mercury walks back up the street, passing by Brian as he melts into the shadows just around the corner from the target’s house. His pace is leisurely and unhurried, which makes him harder to follow – Brian has to match his pace to make sure he doesn’t overtake Mercury or come too close, which is difficult given his long strides. He manages, keeping his eyes fixed on Mercury’s slim back. This feels a little bit like revenge, already; he finally has the upper hand.

Mercury walks back into the financial district, then ducks down concrete stairs and enters the Underground. It’s busy on the tube but not heaving, and Brian is well versed in tailing people on public transport so it doesn’t pose too much of an issue. He sits one carriage along from Mercury and keeps a discreet eye on him through the dirty window which separates their carriages.

They stay on the Central Line until Bond Street, which is a relief – Brian was dreading him exiting at Oxford Street, because even an experienced agent would struggle to keep check of their target in crowds like those – and from there switch to the Jubilee Line. It’s quieter, here; rush hour has long gone and with it the crush of commuters. It’s harder to hide with the sparse gatherings of people, but Mercury heads towards the south-bound trains, which are a little busier. As ever, Brian follows.

Bond Street to Westminster. Get off and cross the river to Waterloo by foot. Get back on at Waterloo East and head north to Leicester Square. Exit at Leicester Square. Nearly lose Mercury in crowds hanging round to watch a busker attempt to break dance. Get back on the Piccadilly line at Covent Garden and stay on til Kings Cross. Off at King Cross, then catch the Northern line to…

Bank. Where they started.

Brian allows himself a moment to glare at Mercury’s back. It feels good, even though Mercury can’t see him.

It’s typical, really. Mercury might not know he’s being followed, but any agent worth his salt knows that it’s good to shake up your routine from time to time, and with it, shake off anyone who might be following you.

But Brian’s not been shaken off yet. He steels himself for the brisk cold above ground as he follows Mercury back up the concrete steps, ignoring the hollow grumble of his stomach. Night has fallen properly now and he’s getting tired, but he comforts himself with the knowledge that this will all be worth it when he finally has some information on Mercury, an address to load into the system. Something to tell Deacon about.

Brian isn’t exactly sure _when_ he’ll tell his boss. It’s not that he _likes_ following Mercury about or anything. But Mercury has got the upper hand on him twice now. It’s only fair that Brian gets to do a little digging of his own.

Mercury leads him in the opposite direction from their target’s house, so at least Brian can be sure that they aren’t still walking in circles. He crosses the Thames and carries on walking past London Bridge until they’re heading into Bermondsey.

It’s on the edges of a quiet, shadowy estate in Bermondsey that Mercury gives him the slip.

Brian is a good agent. He is a sensible agent. He might not always be the easiest to handle, or the best at taking orders, but he’s got good instincts. When Mercury slinks off around the corner down a narrow little alleyway beside a row of garages, Brian stops before he follows him. Something doesn’t feel right.

He takes a single step. Then another. He stops. Listens.

Silence.

No footsteps at all, which means –

Mercury has stopped too.

Brian steps back into the shadows once more and waits.

There’s no movement or sound from around the corner. His heart is beginning to quicken but Brian ignores it, used to tampering down on the traitorous reactions of his body. Fear has a time and a place and it can be useful, but it’s not needed here. Mercury may be good, but so is Brian.

He edges closer. The fingers of his right hand caress the gun tucked carefully out of sight underneath the innocuous science professor jacket. Slowly and silently, he takes it out.

There’s nothing for it. He’s going to have to risk it.

He leans back against the wall and takes a single quiet breath to steady his nerves and his hands. Then in one swift movement, he leaps away from the wall and into the mouth of the alley, gun cocked.

He finds himself staring down the barrel of Mercury’s own gun. Behind it, Mercury grins at him once again.

“Hello, stranger,” he says easily.

Brian’s gun doesn’t waver. “When did you realise I was following you?”

“Yesterday,” Mercury says casually. “Nice get-up, by the way.”

His gaze slides up and down Brian’s body before the sly grin returns, but Brian ignores him.

“I wasn’t following you yesterday,” he lies. He keeps his face impassive, his hand steady.

Mercury tuts at him. “Oh darling, did all that sugary coffee in Pret mess with your mind?”

Damn it.

Brian drops the pretence. “What do you want?”

“What do I want? You were the one following me, dear,” Mercury says, a little snidely. “I just wanted to see who my tall, dark and handsome stalker really was.”

“You knew it was me,” Brian snaps.

Mercury’s eyes glitter in the dark. “I must say, you’re like a dog with a bone. Relentless. I thought I might slip the net in Leicester Square, but you’re too good, aren’t you?”

It’s disconcerting. He’s Brian’s enemy, he’s proved that with his knife and his shove and the gun currently aiming at Brian’s forehead. But he sounds almost impressed, like the compliment isn’t really a dig at all.

“You left a bit suddenly last time,” Brian says. He doesn’t realise he’s mimicking Mercury’s snide tone until it’s left his mouth and then it’s too late to take it back. “I thought I’d try and find out a bit more about the man who likes to turn up and ruin my missions from time to time.”

“Last time? Oh, the gala…” Mercury curls his tongue over his teeth. “Ever so sorry about that one, it was rather rude of me, wasn’t it?”

“The target. The banker we’re both following. What do you want with him?” Brian repeats.

Mercury doesn’t reply right away. He eyes Brian for one long moment like he’s juggling a decision, and then he –

He lowers his gun.

“Why don’t you come in for a cup of tea?” he asks.

Thrown, Brian blinks at him. Then looks pointedly at the gun still in Mercury’s hand.

Following his gaze, Mercury sighs dramatically and makes a big show of tucking it back into the holster. He tugs his suit jacket back around to conceal it.

“There, now I’m harmless as a kitten,” he announces. He cocks an eyebrow at Brian’s own weapon. “If you wouldn’t mind extending the same courtesy?”

Maybe he’s a fool, but Brian does. He doesn’t put it away, though. More fool Mercury if he thinks Brian is going to make himself vulnerable around an enemy agent.

“Thank you,” Mercury says all the same, for all the world as though Brian had solemnly promised never to fire a single shot anywhere near his person. “Now how about that cup of tea? You can come in and we can talk about our little friend, the banker.”

“Why?”

Mercury sighs. “I’m not under any orders to kill you, dear. Not that you’re not important, but you really don’t factor into my mission at all. So, because I have no desire to hurt you, and you have no need to hurt me – let’s have a cup of tea and swap some notes on our banker, and maybe we can help each other out.”

Brian stares at him. Mercury looks back, impassive. This is the first time he’s been close enough to take in any detail about the face he’s spent the last two days poring over from a distance. He wishes it wasn’t quite so dark in the alleyway so that he could see more.

“Tea?” Mercury says, again.

Brian is definitely a fool, but he nods.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think the pacing is a bit all over the place with this. But idk. I was feeling it.

He follows Mercury to a flat about ten minutes away. Any surprise he felt at the notion that Mercury might actually have been heading home when he knew an enemy agent was tailing him is quickly squashed the moment he steps into the flat itself. It’s barely furnished; there’s a bed pushed into the corner and a small table in the corner beside it, a single chair alongside. Along the opposite wall there’s a counter complete with sink and cupboards, but that’s it as far as kitchen space goes.

Mercury doesn’t seem like the kind of man who would go for such bleak minimalism. A temporary bolthole, then. Not that he knows Mercury, Brian reminds himself firmly as he steps through the doorway and closes it behind him, trying to ignore the paranoia that the click of the lock evokes. All he knows of the man is that he’s swift with a knife and a push down the stairs; this could be his favoured aesthetic. 

Somehow he doubts it. Mercury stops in front of him and casts a critical eye around the studio, then looks back at Brian. “I’d say make yourself at home, but there isn’t much to be getting on with, is there?” he sighs, waving a rather dramatic hand at the emptiness around them.

Brian wonders if he’s expecting an answer, then silently chastises himself for even wondering. He’s not here to make nice. It’s a monumentally stupid idea to be here in the first place, but he couldn’t resist because he was too intrigued. Maybe he’ll wind up dead because he just couldn’t resist finding out more about Mercury, or maybe he won’t, but he’s not going to play at niceties for Mercury’s amusement.

He stays by the door and watches as Mercury fills the kettle and switches it on. “How do you take it?” he asks Brian as he bustles about getting cups and tea bags from the cupboard, for all the world as though he expects Brian to drink anything he makes. When Brian doesn’t answer, he calls over his shoulder, “Is Earl Grey acceptable, dear?”

“Yes,” Brian says.

He makes the tea, chattering away as he does – “I do prefer tea leaves, but needs must, you know?” – before carrying two cups over to the small table. There’s only one chair, so he pulls it out for Brian and then goes around to perch on the edge of his bed.

Brian walks over before he can be asked, because he gets the distinct impression that Mercury is about to encourage him towards his seat like he’s a nervy cat. If Mercury dares to make gentling noises at him, he’s going to walk straight back out again.

“There now,” Mercury says as Brian sits down. He smiles at him, all sunny. “Isn’t this nice?”

Brian makes a non-committal noise. He wraps a hand around the hot cup to centre himself and gets straight to it. “Who do you work for?”

Mercury makes a bit of a face, like he’s disappointed that Brian is plunging straight into work matters. He leans forward on his elbow all the same and answers, confidentially. “I’m not actually working for anyone at the moment.”

Brian narrows his eyes. “So that’s why you decided to invite me round for tea? Because you’re not working for anyone so you won’t face any consequences, but you’re expecting me to – what? Tell you all about who I work for? Spill the secrets over Earl Grey?”

“Don’t you like Earl Grey?”

“I don’t like being stabbed in the stomach,” Brian snaps.

Mercury elects to ignore that, taking a sip of his own tea instead. Brian lets the silence drag out as Mercury takes a moment to inhale the fragrant steam rising from his cup before he sets it gently down.

“Now, don’t be silly, of course I don’t expect you to tell me anything you don’t want to,” he says.

He makes it sound so reasonable. Like Brian’s an old friend he’s meeting after a minor disagreement. Brian sets his jaw, trying to steady his nerves. He doesn’t like feeling thrown but it’s like everything Mercury says is designed to trip him. Just like the knife surprised him, and the hand on his back. He almost wishes he could take a sip of the tea, just to give his hands something to do, but he isn’t stupid.

“I’m not expecting anything,” Mercury continues, then flashes Brian a quick, sly grin. “Hoping on the other hand…”

Brian stands up. “You said you were willing to discuss the target we share,” he says flatly. “If you’re just here to toy with me, I’m going.”

Mercury holds up his hands like Brian’s gun is still pointing at him. “Oh dear, you’re not one for larking about are you? I’ll stop, I’ll stop.” He gestures at the chair. “Sit back down and we’ll talk.”

Brian eyes him, but there’s nothing in Mercury’s face that he can analyse any more than he already has. Slowly, he sits back down.

“I’m not working for anyone at the moment. But I do work for an agency most of the time. This particular case had something of a… personal angle, let’s say. Hence why I’m taking an interest in my own time.”

“What’s the banker got to do with you?”

“Nothing,” Mercury says. “I’m sure you know all about his less-than-legal dealings, however, and I have ties to an individual that he is financing through them.”

“He’s financing a lot of people,” Brian notes.

Mercury just nods. “Is the banker the one your people want, or is it one of the people he’s tied up with?”

Brian hesitates. He can imagine well enough what Deacon would have to say if he could see Brian now, much less hear him. He has no intention of giving anything away to Mercury, but Mercury already knows that he’s after the banker, and everything the banker is tied up in. Brian wouldn’t be telling him anything he doesn’t already know.

Anyway. Deacon always wants Brian to jerk about neatly on tight puppet strings, and it’s not in Brian’s nature to dance for other people.

“One of the people he’s tied up with,” he replies eventually.

“Mm. Not surprising, he’s not very interesting in himself, is he?”

Against the odds, Brian feels a ridiculous urge to smile. Mercury sounds so put out that he’s spent two days tailing a bore, especially when he’s only a pawn in their game. Brian can understand that well enough.

He fights back the smile, but from the shrewd, amused glance Mercury throws him, he thinks there’s a chance he wasn’t quite quick enough.

“I don’t think there’s much that we can tell each other about him that we don’t both already know,” Mercury continues. “But perhaps we can help each other when it comes to the bigger picture.” He holds up a hand again to ward off Brian’s automatic retort. “Oh, relax, would you? I’m not talking about working together, or giving secrets to the enemy – in any case, I’m not your enemy here.”

“Not _here_ ,” Brian repeats, letting emphasis fall hard and heavy on the unspoken.

Mercury offers him a little smile over the edge of his teacup, almost coy. “Quite. No, I simply mean… we could be of assistance to each other. If you tell me the name of the individual you’re after and I find anything out that’s worth knowing, I can pass the information on. And you can do the same for me.”

“Why would we do that?”

“Why wouldn’t we?”

Silence falls again. Brian’s tea cools on the rickety table in front of him. Mercury has almost finished his.

“What’s the name of your target?” Brian asks eventually.

“Norman Sheffield,” Mercury says, distastefully. “Yours?”

“Paul Prenter.”

He wonders if he’s made a huge mistake. But there’s no taking it back now.

“How will we contact each other?” he queries instead.

Mercury tilts his head. “Are you asking for my number?” he asks innocently.

“Not even for a second,” Brian deadpans.

Mercury grins at him. “Well, I’d suggest that you give me your address but something tells me you wouldn’t be happy with that either.”

“I’ll send a phone to this address with a number installed,” Brian says.

“You’re very efficient, aren’t you?” Mercury coos.

“Will you still be here in two days’ time?”

“You need to learn to relax a little bit darling, do you know that? But yes. I will be.”

And that’s that.

-

He does send the phone. Part of him expects nothing to come of it, half-convinced that his tea party with Mercury was some strange fever dream, perhaps the result of too little sleep whilst he spent all hours lurking in coffee shops tailing the banker.

But Mercury texts him.

_I like a man who’s as good as their word. M x_

Brian doesn’t reply.

-

When Brian finds the name Norman Sheffield in some documents Deacon provides him with, he stares at it for a long moment.

He doesn’t do anything about it for the rest of the day. He doesn’t do anything about it all evening, but he lies in bed thinking about it all the same.

The next morning, he gets up and replies to Mercury’s text. Three sentences, a brief summary of the information the documents have provided. Not our target _,_ he tells himself as his fingers fly over the keypad. Nothing to do with us, and maybe Mercury will be able to find some useful intel of his own.

Half an hour after he sends the text, he gets a reply.

_Thanks. M x_

The single word irritates Brian more than it has any right to do. He shoves the phone in a drawer and does his best to forget about Mercury and the whole stupid situation, because it seems clear that he’s been played, that Mercury only ever wanted information from him and never intended to play along with him.

Three days later, a mournful bleep draws him back to the drawer. It’s the phone, warning him that it’s nearly out of battery.

When he picks it up, he has two unread texts. The first was sent two days ago and contains a series of random numbers, letters and symbols, followed by Mercury’s sign off. The second was sent yesterday.

_Prenter’s password. Assuming you got that? M x_

Afterwards, Brian tells Deacon that the hack was sheer good luck. He makes an off-hand comment about how anyone with a password that complicated would have to write it down somewhere, and Deacon laughs and accepts it. They’ve got something on Prenter at last and Brian is back in Deacon’s good books, ironically.

A few days later he sees a news piece about Norman Sheffield being arrested for fraud at the highest level, quite the scandal, a police raid on his home and his son publicly denouncing him. Brian smiles, just a bit.

-

That’s the first mission.

There’s another. And another.

They bump into each other in a quiet village just north of Leeds, in the urban sprawl of New York, in the bleakest wilderness of Canada.

Sometimes it’s truly by accident, working on the same job from afar or jobs that are tangled up together, and Brian always knows it from the way Mercury’s mouth opens slightly when he sees Brian, even though the rest of his face is carefully blank. Nobody else would ever know that he’s seen anything out of the ordinary, but Brian knows. He knows Mercury. He knows his tells.

(He knows the addresses for four of Mercury’s boltholes, now. He knows how Mercury likes his tea and his favourite type of biscuit. He knows that Mercury, for some reason, likes to invite Brian around for chats that can last long into the night and that Brian, for some reason, agrees.)

Sometimes it’s not deliberate so much as expected, one of them recognising traits of the other’s work and then waiting. When that happens, Brian watches Mercury’s mouth tilt knowingly as their eyes meet, and tries to pretend that he wasn’t looking forward to it.

(“It had you written all over it,” Mercury tells him, reclining with a glass of red for once and regarding him with that grin that is so familiar, now. “I knew you were working on that one before I’d even spent five minutes on it from our end, darling.”

He’s so sure, his eyes glittering with the satisfaction of knowing that he was right. Brian dislikes the idea that he is so very predictable, but he suspects that arguing the point will only prove Mercury right once again.

“I knew you were there before we saw each other,” Brian says instead.

Mercury scoffs. “You did not.”

“I did. I could smell your aftershave.”

It’s the first time he’s managed to properly surprise Mercury and he delights in the thrill of it.)

Brian doesn’t say anything to Deacon. He isn’t ambushed and wrestled into a sleek black car to be carted off to some deserted warehouse and killed, so he presumes Mercury hasn’t said anything to his side either.

They bump into each other again. Mercury makes him tea and Brian drinks it. They talk about anything which isn’t work, because Mercury knows that pushing too hard makes Brian back away from him, and Brian knows that Mercury isn’t really inviting him over to talk about work anyway.

As Brian is leaving, he pauses in the doorway. “May,” he says, with his hand on the door handle.

“Hm?”

Brian glances over his shoulder.

Mercury is looking back at him, his dark eyes questioning.

“It’s May,” Brian says. “My name.”

That grin again.

“I know.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Final chapter! Where the 'lovers' part of 'enemies to friends to lovers' kicks in at long last...

It comes to a head back in London. Another shared mission, approached from different sides. It doesn’t go well.

Brian isn’t happy, because he’s never happy when he can’t wrap up a mission neatly and shelve it correctly before moving onto the new one. He isn’t surprised, though, because both he and Deacon had expected the situation to be difficult. Call him a pessimist, but he wasn’t really expecting success.

Mercury, it seems, was. By now Brian knows that Mercury works for a man called Taylor. He knows that the two of them have a decent working relationship, that Taylor considers Mercury his best operative (admittedly, he’s sure Mercury would have embroidered the tale with that little addition even if it wasn’t true, but he knows how good Mercury is; it will be true). He knows that Mercury has a flair for the dramatic, which doesn’t surprise Brian in the least (he’s sure that a more sensible person might have found a way around their first meeting that didn’t involve stabbing Brian in the stomach). Evidently that dramatic flair has been getting Mercury into hot water at work, and it sounds like he’s made himself more enemies than friends.

Brian absolutely does not feel protective when he hears about that, or pieces it together from the unintentionally revealing comments Mercury makes from time to time when his guard his down. Definitely not. Mercury can look after himself.

Mercury has been letting his guard down more and more, recently. Brian isn’t sure what to make of it.

He knows from the grim set of Mercury’s mouth afterwards that the failure of the mission isn’t good news for him. He meets Brian a short distance away, where nobody can recognise or follow them. It’s absurd how normal their illicit rendezvous feels; it’s even more ridiculous how relaxed Brian feels, falling into step beside this man who should at the very least he considered his rival.

They end up retreating to the same Bermondsey bolthole where they first properly became acquainted with each other, all those months ago. Mercury pours himself a vodka and Brian a whisky as soon as they step inside, then slumps down to sit on the edge of the bed with a huff.

Brian takes the chair. He sips at his whisky in silence.

“Taylor likes me,” Mercury says at last. “I know he does.”

Brian just makes a non-committal noise. He doesn’t know Taylor, never will; he can’t comment on the man’s loyalties.

He hopes Mercury doesn’t lose his job for this failure, though. As much as he thinks Mercury could make it on his own, he knows a big change like that would inevitably affect their meetings. And… he doesn’t want that. Even if he can’t quite admit to himself why that is.

Silence descends once more. Dusk turns into night outside, but Mercury doesn’t bother to turn on the light. His apathy is disconcerting.

Brian finishes his drink. He glances at Mercury, but he’s lost in his own thoughts, his vodka sitting ignored on the table.

Brian stands. “I should – ”

Mercury’s head rises. He makes an odd, jerky movement with his hand, like he was going to abort the urge to reach for Brian but then did it anyway. He stretches his hand out. The moonlight touches the delicate jutting bone of his slender wrist and Brian stares at it, at his fragility laid bare in the pale glow.

“Don’t go,” Mercury says.

He doesn’t sound like himself. Brian would expect a demand from Mercury, something teasing or cutting or even sly – not tired and quiet, like the events of the day have diminished him.

Brian glances down at the bed, then back up at Mercury’s shadowed face. Neither of them speak.

Mercury drops his hand and Brian almost opens his mouth to tell him – what? No? Don’t? Come back?

All of them. None of them.

(All of them.)

Brian’s tongue feels heavy and stupid in his mouth and he hates it, hates himself, because what’s the point of being clever if you miss every chance to say the things that matter?

But he hasn’t missed this one; Mercury is only shifting up on the bed so there’s more room for Brian, pulling himself into a sitting position against the pillows. He tucks his legs up underneath him so that he isn’t taking up much of the bed at all, the expanse of sheets beside him open and beckoning. He looks at Brian again.

Something shifts in Brian’s head at long fucking last. He doesn’t think. He shrugs off his jacket, kicks off his shoes and climbs into the bed.

Mercury sits still and watches him. He’s smiling faintly, but it’s the wrong smile, not the one Brian is used to. He wants that one back.

Brian takes a breath to steady his own galloping pulse, then leans in and presses his lips gently to Mercury’s.

There’s a sharp inhale against his mouth. Before Brian can give in to the black hole that forms instantaneously in the pit of his stomach, Mercury relaxes against him. His lips are soft as they open beneath Brian’s. When Brian lifts a hand to cup Mercury’s jaw, turning his head more to meet him, he feels the scratch of forming stubble against the heel of his hand juxtaposed with the softness of the skin beneath his fingertips as they caress Mercury’s cheekbone, the delicate skin by his brow. The contradiction of it is utterly Mercury and Brian wants more of it, more of him; now that he’s admitted it to himself it’s like the need will swallow him whole, like he’ll never be able to concentrate on anything else ever again until he knows what it feels like to be next to him, surrounded by him, inside him.

Mercury draws back. His eyes glitter in the darkness and there, at last, Brian sees the Mercury he knows and –

“That’s nice,” Mercury murmurs. He turns so he’s facing Brian fully and Brian knows him well enough to recognise the challenge in his gaze. It’s like all their little games have led up to this point and all that’s left is to see whether Brian will take Mercury’s bait.

“Nice,” Brian agrees, and then he closes the distance between them and kisses Mercury properly.

It’s not gentle this time. Brian’s hands are everywhere and his mouth isn’t far behind and Mercury is, as always, a match for him; they kiss and bite and tear at each other’s clothes until Brian’s are thrown over his shoulder and Mercury’s are kicked impatiently off the bed. When they’re both naked Brian stares, looking like he’s always wanted to look. Mercury, the little shit, just rolls his eyes.

“Condoms and lube,” he says, nodding his head at the small cabinet beside the bed.

“Trying to hurry me up?”

“After all this time? Obviously, I thought you’d never take a hint,” Mercury scoffs.

… Brian supposes he can’t argue with that, really, as much as he’d like to. He makes do with throwing the condoms and lube at Mercury once he’s fished them out of the draw, but Mercury’s hands fly up to catch them anyway.

“Easy, tiger,” he says. This time, his grin has the familiar teasing edge that Brian is so well used to.

Brian ignores him, as he usually does. “How are we doing this?”

Mercury eyes him speculatively. He crawls forward and pushes Brian back until his back hits the pillows and then climbs on top, legs on each side of Brian’s hips. He’s so close, his ass so perfectly positioned over Brian’s aching cock, and Brian has to fight the very sudden, very intense urge to pull him closer.

“How’s this?” Mercury murmurs. He licks his way into Brian’s mouth again. Brian counts to three in his head to get himself under control, then kisses him back and allows his hands to roam just a little; up the smooth curve of his spine and down to finally grip his ass. Mercury makes a small, pleased noise which goes straight to his cock.

Brian doesn’t bother answering. He reaches out and fumbles blindly for the discarded lube and condoms, unwilling to detach his mouth from Mercury’s for a second more than he has to. He has to let go in order to roll a condom on, but he doesn’t mind too much given that Mercury has grabbed the lube and is opening himself up right in front of him.

He knows he’s staring again, but he can’t help it. Mercury is biting his lip, his brow furrowed. Brian wants him more than he has ever wanted anybody in his life.

Part of him thinks that it’s a sight he could stare at all day, but another part of him is rather more preoccupied with his own situation. He reaches for Mercury when he can’t bear watching and not touching anymore, and Mercury comes straight into his arms.

It’s a balancing act but they manage it together, Brian trying his best to hold still with one hand splayed against Mercury’s hip, steading him as he lowers himself down. Mercury’s thighs twitch and strain with the effort of going slow, but it’s his face Brian can’t look away from – that same tense look of concentration that sends sheer heat flooding Brian’s belly.

Mercury gasps as he settles himself into position and Brian throws his head back, clenching his fists and gritting his teeth with the effort of not moving. For a long second it feels like all his other senses have fled his body, vision blanking out and hearing muffling up, utterly unable to feel anything but the tight clench of Mercury’s body around him.

When he finally squeezes his eyes back open, Mercury is looking back at him. He nods in answer to Brian’s unspoken question and Brian finally moves his hips – a little more than he means to, actually, but Mercury just groans in pleasure. Brian does it again, and again, and then stops because he will never forgive himself if he ruins this by coming quicker than he did when he was nineteen.

“Fucking _hell_ ,” he hisses and Mercury just nods again in dazed agreement. He rocks back and forth, letting his head tilt back like he’s staring up at the heavens rather than his own safe house ceiling.

It feels incredible, but Brian can’t see his face like that and he wants, very much, to watch Mercury’s expressions as Brian fucks him. He sets his hands on Mercury’s waist and squeezes him a little in warning, waiting until he’s looking back at Brian. Then in one swift movement, Brian rolls them both over until Mercury’s pressed back into the pillows and Brian is on top of him.

Mercury blinks up at him. His mouth is half-open, his lips swollen with their aggressive kisses. Brian sets his arms on either side of Mercury’s head.

“How’s this?” he asks in an echo of Mercury’s earlier question.

Mercury’s teeth flash white against the shadows all around them.

“Fucking _perfect,_ ” he says, with such feeling that Brian surprises both of them with a little huffed out laugh.

“I’ll try to live up to that.”

He falls into his own pace easier like this and he fucking loves how Mercury looks beneath him, how he can press his forehead into Mercury’s shoulder and _feel_ him whining as well as hearing it. He’s distantly aware when Mercury mumbles something that isn’t an incoherent noise, but he doesn’t catch it.

“What?” Brian groans. He snaps his hips harder; Mercury’s fingers scrabble at his shoulders, his nails catching and leaving little half-moon welts. Brian doesn’t feel it.

Mercury gasps under him and Brian takes a moment to properly look at him, at the flush on his cheeks, the sweaty tangle of his hair. There’s a fierce rush of something like pride but ten times more savage. He wants Mercury to look like this for him and only him. He wants to leave his marks on Mercury’s skin and know that Mercury is belongs to him.

He dips his head to do just that but Mercury swats at him to re-capture his attention.

“Freddie,” he manages to get out, voice strained and jaw clenched. “It’s Freddie.”

“Freddie,” Brian repeats in satisfaction. The name sounds right in his mouth and it tastes like his.

-

Neither of them speak for a long while afterwards. Brian doesn’t have any words, for once in his life, and judging by the way Freddie had screamed his way through an orgasm shortly after Brian’s own, he’s done a good job at silencing him, too.

Freddie is the first to move, but only to clean himself up; he soon returns to the bed, kicking the dirty sheets away and curling up in the space between Brian’s bare shoulder and the wall. There’s a relaxed familiarity to the scene that makes Brian want to hold on tightly to it. He doesn’t know if he can, he doesn’t know if he’ll break it if he holds on too tight, but… he wants to try. He thinks Freddie wants to try, too, and that fills him with hope like nothing else.

A thought strikes him as they lay there together in the dark. He glances at Freddie. Freddie catches the side-eye and raises an eyebrow, waiting.

“Do you know my name?” Brian asks.

Freddie doesn’t say anything for a long moment.

“I know it ends in ‘May’,” he says at last. There’s a definite edge of grumpiness to his voice at being made to admit that there was one thing that all his clever research on Brian hadn’t unearthed.

Brian knows that that grumpiness would definitely not be improved if Brian voiced how cute he finds it, so he keeps that particular thought to himself.

“I suppose there had to be something you missed,” he says airily instead. After everything that’s happened, a knife in the stomach and countless scoldings at work, he thinks he deserves a moment to gloat.

Freddie sniffs at him. Brian just smiles. He can feel Freddie’s gaze boring into the side of his head and he can imagine his expression without looking – the slight pout at being caught out, the curious eyes.

“Brian,” he says, rearranging the pillows into a more comfortable position behind his head. He settles back, legs outstretched. His knee brushes Freddie’s, casually intimate.

“Brian,” Freddie repeats, and it’s funny, but Brian thinks that his name sounds just right in Freddie’s mouth too.


End file.
